Mizore Soryu

Name: Mizore Soryu/"Radio Asuka"

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12th Grade

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Art, political philosophy, freeganism, aerosols, free running.

Appearance: Mizore Soryu is rangy at 5'5" and 135 pounds, with long limbs, pale skin and larger-than-average hands and feet. Her hair, naturally black, is now evened with lavender stripes, and partially tied (with a rainbow of ribbons) into haphazard braids. Her eyes, naturally brown, are now contact-tinted anime style bright green. Her face is large, high-cheekboned, pale, heart-shaped with a slightly pronounced nose, manga-style striking. She wears a patchwork longcoat, homemade from scraps of cool-colored fabric (purple, blue, silver, black and green); under it, she wears a white ribbed tank top and a pleated dark purple skirt that hits her knees, opaque forest-colored tights, and combat boots decorated with patches and glitter-glue in every color of the rainbow.

Biography: Squished between an overachieving older sister and three well-rounded little brothers, Mizore Soryu was the child her parents were grateful to let take care of herself--and that was the way she liked it.

Ever since she was young, Mizore had been drawn to outlaw societies. Robin Hood. Subcultures. Secret signals. Standing up to a much bigger enemy, a power to whom victory seemed inevitable, standing up, fighting, and winning. And she loved display, the impossible, the circus, the bright colors and pictures of comic books, anime and manga. The bright lights of cities, New York, Hong Kong. People, smells, sounds, the unusual things they said, street magicians, David Blaine, heists, art thieves, things done on principle, mardi gras beads. Clever demonstrations, protests, controversies, conspiracies, subterfuge, and spectacle. In short, she loved the art of the popular, the art of the everyday, the unusual world.

This love of art was encouraged (somewhat skeptically) by her parents, and encouraged (much more earnestly) by her teachers and counselors. Of course, they didn't quite get it; they wanted her to draw with pencils on paper, when she wanted to draw with invisible ink on the walls. They wanted her to become Talented at Art, so she could make portfolios and get into Honors programs and, eventually, good colleges. Mizore never really bothered with portfolios on her own initiative, and certainly didn't get the scramble for colleges and honors programs. She just wanted her art to be seen. But she was laid-back, so she did what her parents and teachers said.

Her real passion in art was cities. She could build fairy cities out of scavenged trash, turn dumpsters into swimming pools, make vacant lots into rose gardens, and build, on a hot summer's day, a sun-reflecting mirror collection to burn pictures into a neighbor's wall. She didn't get why some of these things were "art" and some weren't, according to her teachers and parents, but mostly she was satisfied.

And then came the difficult time.

On Mizore's thirteenth birthday, Mizore's mother announced that she was pregnant--with what was to become the first of three boys, each born ten months after the other. Mizore's parent's marriage became impossibly strained, but neither parent would contemplate divorce--it would "hurt the children". Mizore's friends grew breasts and odd obsessions; she started drifting away from them. Her grades, always A's and B's, fell into the consistent C range, much to her parent's disappointment. She started keeping a "wall of atrocties"; articles clipped out from newspapers about the horrible state of the world. Each night, they would help her feel black as she slept.

It didn't take long, however, for Mizore to decide she would fight that wall.

She dismissed all mainstream activist organizations almost immediately; they seemed wishy-washy and not at all committed to the change she wanted to make. She wanted people who were not afraid to be radical, bravery and fire.

She joined (and later unjoined) PETA and became vegetarian. She hung out with anarchists, free runners, freegans. She read political theory, and became a pacifist. She studied nonviolent movements, Objectivism, libertarianism, racism, democratic socialism, Orwellian societies and the politics of farming. She dyed her hair red, and wrapped it in ribbons. She learned the skills and technicalities of free running. She volunteered for Greenpeace campaigns. She went to many, many demonstrations, including a short stint with Black Bloc. She became acquainted with sticking flowers in guns, freezing rain and police hostility. Adbusters magazine was her enduring love--anti-consumerism, corporate malfeasance, strange political philosophy, and art--and she began freelancing for them.

Between the occasional raids on her radical friends, the arrests for creating tent cities, sitting in, and protesting sans permit and the state's laws (and percieved laws) against scavenging through dumpsters and spraying art on the streets, Mizore dealt with the police a lot during these years. Through this, she learned to use art as "peaceful resistance" in devilishly effective ways--also to bite her tongue, keep a cool head, and stick by what she thought was right. Luckily her parents, who in the past would have cared about Mizore's minor law-enforcement run-ins, were currently in the process of radically loosening up on Mizore's upbringing; three boys to take care of didn't leave them much choice. Her school pulled her worriedly into the principle's office a few times; after sitting through a number of passionate diatribes on the rightness of her actions, they also left the girl-artist alone.

And at fifteen, with help of the anarchists, the free runners and the freegans, she became "Radio Asuka".

Radio Asuka is Mizore’s street artist handle. Her signature, with which she signs anonymous, colorful and huge pieces of graffiti art. The art of “Radio Asuka” now has a good-sized fanbase on the internet and is becoming famous locally (to the point where small museums have courted her pseudonym's art through Life on Enceladus, and where proving her identity was enough to get her an art scholarship at Bennington). Though her true identity is known only to the Life On Enceladus commune, the artist behind the swirling "Radio Asuka" signature is increasingly a topic of conversation among arty people in St. Paul. In school, though, she's just Mizore--a rangy Asian freegan artist with radical politics and lavender braids, a counterculture wonk, a Radio Asuka fan, well-liked in the way kooky harmless artists are, but not particularly close to anyone in Bayview. She's never joined any clubs, and most of her time outside of school is spent with Life On Enceladus.

Why become a graffiti artist? Some of her more politically active pals sneered at her. She explained.

Because even the people who would never look at a PETA brief, who would dismiss anything Greenpeace had to say just because it was Greenpeace--even they looked at art.

And even more than that, Radio Asuka made this sucky world scads more beautiful--and if she could make a city prettier, perk up a day and open up a world, she was happy.

Advantages: She's a sometimes-freegan, so she knows how to scrap and scavenge and scrape by, and she'll eat practically anything (including plants; she has a bit of experience seeking food in the wild, and will use it). She has a genuinely cool head, and no particular psychological need for people or creature comforts. Around buildings, her free running skills could help her out of sticky situations.

Disadvantages: She's pretty sure she's gonna die, so she probably won't even play--at least not the way Danya wants her to. While she wouldn't describe herself as a strict pacifist (she hangs out with people who know what that word means) she has no intention of using violence against her classmates, of giving the terrorists that satisfaction.

Designated Number: Female student no. 122

---

Designated Weapon: Caltrops

Conclusion: Perhaps she'll be able to put her good mobility to use, but that peaceful streak just ruins her longterm potential. Such a pity.

'The above biography is as written by storyspoiler. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: storyspoiler

Kills: None

Killed By: N/A, Escaped

Collected Weapons: Caltrops (assigned weapon, traded), red spray paint (from Mirabelle Nesa)

Allies: Naoko Raidon, Zach Jamis

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Mizore, in chronological order.

V4:
 * Ten Shades of Gray
 * The Quiet Lives of Baron Saturday
 * Darkness Within
 * instinct•algorithm
 * The Moon Is Laughing At You
 * Ghosts
 * All's Fair
 * Broken Like the Sun
 * -.-- -.-- --..
 * The Dead Flag Blues
 * Riddles Of Monsters
 * The Cavalry Arrives
 * Boats and Birds
 * The Cavalry Arrives (second visit to thread)

Post-Game:
 * Dead Letter
 * And Where Does That Leave The Rest Of Us?

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Mizore Soryu. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * I liked Mizore a lot, for a number of reasons. Chief among them, though, was that she took being a pacifist to its logical conclusion in SOTF. Mizore was determined to be nonviolent, and she was often stymied by this choice in her dealings with others. While she befriended and allied herself with Raidon, she was unable to actually divert him from his path.

In fact, I think an often-overlooked part of the Raidon/Mizore dynamic is that both, prior to the game, held fairly strong pacifist ideals. Once in play, both were forced to grapple with them, and came to different conclusions. Raidon abandoned his former views, choosing to attempt to stay alive even if doing so meant acting selfishly and sacrificing his morality. Mizore, on the other hand, chose to stand behind her ideals, risking the sacrifice of her life and her friends to preserve her morality. Interestingly, I can't necessarily say that that is a less selfish choice. Mizore and Raidon each picked what was most important to them and chose to defend it come hell or high water, each in their own ways. They were both fanatics, and it was only in meeting and coming together that they were able to come to an understanding of other ways to be. I think it says a lot that they grew to care for each other, especially since, in the end, neither one entirely gave up their point of view. Raidon wavered more, but in the end was still willing to use force to obtain his desires, sending Mizore along for the rescue against her wishes.

Mizore had a very interesting arc. As a pacifist, she surrounded herself with others who often relied on violence (Raidon aside, Julian Avery is a highly problematic travelling companion as well). She grappled with the moral weight of these actions, but in the end decided to accept it as somewhat paradoxical, trying to coax them out of their ways but content to let them make their own choices. Mizore is, I think, a stronger character because she is conflicted, clinging to her morality and self image while embarking on contradictory courses. It makes her a lot more relatable and takes a concept that could too easily end in her coming off as perfect and turns it around to call her actions into question and let the reader draw their own conclusions.

The only other thing I really have to say is that I wish we'd seen more of her after the game (a trend with all the escaped kids; I'd love to see handlers have the chance to do more with them someday). I'd recommend giving Mizore and friends a look, for a story not like much else going on in V4 that raises very interesting questions. - MurderWeasel